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The Linguistics of Temperature
Edited by Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm
[Typological Studies in Language 107] 2015
► pp. 471–490

Blowing hot, hotter, and hotter yet

Temperature vocabulary in Marathi

In this paper we present a comprehensive description of temperature vocabulary in Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the state of Maharashtra, India. We discuss (i) the lexical distinctions that divide up the temperature spectrum, (ii) syntactic distinctions made in the evaluation of perception of temperature and (iii) interaction between lexical distinctions and entities subjected to temperature evaluation. Marathi has two unmarked words for ‘cold’: than�d� and gār. We shed light on their distribution. Unlike English, Japanese, and many West European languages, Marathi uses the experiencer/dative subject construction – one of the hallmarks of the South Asian linguistic area (Masica 1976) – for expressing personal-feeling temperature.

Published online: 11 February 2015
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https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.107.15par
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